tbh id just buy a scratch and dent one. The finish on these things dont stand up at all, low impacts causes dings and scratches, and the finish is so easy to scrape/dent off. The finish is really really thin when compared to the rubberized ego style finishes, that were a pain in the *** to get off when i wanted to. When I tried to give my vaporshark a makeover I was surprised how easily the finish came out, i did it with a flathead screwdriver with little effort.
one go over with the screwdriver already showed the bare aluminum. I also dropped my rDNA from about 2 feet, it landed on a bottom corner and basically chunked pieces of aluminum off. I was surprised how easily I was able to smoothed the corner though, I just took a screwdriver and shaped the edge to be smooth, it doesnt match the rest of the corners but the aluminum basically shaved off real easy with a dull scissor edge.
no matter what you do to try to keep the finish looking pristine it will get chips and flaking paint no matter what. If you try to keep a sharkskin on it to prevent this, then let me ask you this. What's the whole point? You cant see the finish under the sharkskin anyways.
dont get me wrong I love my rDNA40 and i would -probably- buy it for the price I got it on the CyberMonday Sale (152$), but the downside of the poor finish + the finnicky temp control to me isnt worth the money I saved to buy it at original pricing.
for a nearly 200$ product, I would expect the aesthetics of the device to be better. It feels like a product that would function for an extended period of time, but the finish just wont. The finish on the fire button wears off pretty easily as well. After a couple weeks you can tell by the discoloration/scraping of coating on the fire button just by normal use.
Just get a scratched/dented version imo. It is inevitable that your dna40 will end up with them anyways.
